News Releases - Recovery Act

City of Miami Will Provide Green Job Training through EPA Brownfields Grants

(Atlanta, Ga. – Aug. 6, 2009) EPA has selected the City of Miami, Fla. to receive $500,000 in grant funding to help train community members for jobs assessing and cleaning up brownfields sites. Funding for these grants is supported by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

“This Recovery Act funding will train people for real jobs that help restore their neighborhoods,” said Stan Meiburg, EPA Acting Regional Administrator in Atlanta. “It will go a long way in protecting public health and the environment and providing economic benefits through cleanup and redevelopment of properties that have been sitting idle due to real or even perceived contamination.”

The Miami Brownfields Job Training Program will employ residents and facilitate the cleanup of brownfields by providing free “green job” training for 120 city residents over nine 16-week training cycles. Training will include brownfields assessment, remediation, and redevelopment and will prepare graduates for entry-level positions as asbestos inspectors and abatement workers, emergency spill response technicians, environmental technicians, field sampling technicians, HAZWOPER technicians, and OSHA safety inspectors.

Since 1998, EPA has awarded more than $25 million in brownfields job training funds. More than 5,000 people have completed EPA-funded training programs, with more than 3,250 obtaining employment in the environmental fields, earning an average wage of $13.81 per hour. EPA established the Brownfields Job Training Program to help residents take advantage of jobs created by the assessment, cleanup, and sustainable reuse of brownfields sites and to ensure that the economic benefits derived from brownfields redevelopment remain in the affected communities.

Brownfields are sites where expansion, redevelopment, or reuse may be complicated by the presence or potential presence of a hazardous substance, pollutant, or contaminant. In 2002, the Small Business Liability Relief and Brownfields Revitalization Act (Brownfields Law) was passed. The Brownfields Law expanded the definition of what is considered a brownfield, so communities may now focus on mine-scarred lands or sites contaminated by petroleum or the manufacture and distribution of illegal drugs. EPA’s Brownfields Program encourages redevelopment of America’s estimated 450,000 abandoned and contaminated waste sites.

President Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 on February 17, 2009, and has directed that the Recovery Act be implemented with unprecedented transparency and accountability. To that end, the American people can see how every dollar is being invested at Recovery.gov.